Gujarat High Court To Start Uploading Orders/Judgments In The Gujarati Language [Read Press Release]

The Press Release reads,

"As desired by Honourable the Chief Justice of High Court of Gujarat, Mr. Justice Vikram Nath and as further recommended by Honourable Judges of the Artificial Intelligence Committee of the High Court, Honourable the Chief Justice has been pleased to pass directions to start uploading one order/judgment of this High Court per working day in Gujarati language on the website of the High Court for the benefit of litigants and the general public."(emphasis supplied)

It has been further stated in the Press Release that the Orders/Judgments passed by the High Court on socially relevant issues would be selected for being translated using software tools and further correcting the same as required.

This practice of so uploading vernacular Order/Judgments has been initiated from Friday (02^nd October) on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti.

For accessing translated Orders/Judgments of the High Court in the Gujarati language, a separate web-page named 'Select Orders/Judgments in Gujarati' has been created on the website of the High Court at https://gujarathighcourt.nic.in/gujaratijudgments

Live Law checked the aforesaid web-page and found that the First Order, which has been translated in Gujarati Language and uploaded on the web-page, is related to the Directions issued by the Gujarat High court to State Government on Friday (04^th September) in PIL No. 42/2020.

Notably, in this order dated 04^th September, the Gujarat High Court had said that the State Government should stop playing on the back foot. While requesting people to follow COVID norms, the High Court had further suggested the Government that hiding COVID deaths was not in the public interest.

It may be noted that the President of India Shri Ramnath Kovind, in October 2017, had mooted this idea and had said that a system could be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgement are made available by the High Courts in the local or regional language.

While speaking at the Valedictory Function of the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of High Court of Kerala, the president had said: "It is important to not only take justice to the people, but also to make it understandable to litigating parties in a language they know. High Courts deliver judgements in English, but we are a country of diverse languages. The litigant may not be conversant with English and the finer points of the judgement may escape him or her. The litigating parties will thus be dependent on the lawyer or another person to translate the judgement. This can add to time and cost." (emphasis supplied)

"Perhaps a system could be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgments are made available by the Honourable High Courts in the local or regional language. This could happen in a period of say 24 or 36 hours after the judgement is pronounced. The language could be Malayalam in the Honourable Kerala High Court or Hindi in the Honourable Patna High Court, as the case may be", he had further suggested. (emphasis supplied)

Speaking at the special convocation ceremony at the Tamil Nadu Dr.Ambedkar Law Academy, Chennai in July 2019, the President Ram Nath Kovind had again stressed on the need to have judgments translated into regional languages to increases access to justice.

"It is important to not only take justice to the people, but also to make it understandable to litigating parties in a language they know. Perhaps a system could be evolved whereby certified translated copies of judgements are made available by the High Courts in the local or regional language", he said.

In July 2019, the Supreme Court had started uploading the translated version of its judgments in regional languages. Justice S. A. Bobde had released the translation of Supreme Court judgments into regional languages.

President of India Ram Nath Kovind had received the first copy. Justice Bobde had also officially released it on the Supreme Court website. A separate tab titled 'Vernacular Judgments' can be seen on the home page of the Supreme Court Portal.

Recently, the Supreme Court has started uploading the translated version of its judgments in more regional languages.

Some judgments delivered by the Court last year and earlier this year are now seen available in Malayalam, Tamil and Punjabi. Mostly the judgments connected to a state is being translated and uploaded in the language of that state.

Notably, the Madhya Pradesh High Court (Indore bench) on Monday (14^th September) heard several cases and passed orders in Hindi in place of English, to mark Hindi Diwas.

A press release issued by the MP Public Relations Department stated that Justices SC Sharma, Virender Singh and SK Awasthi of HC's Indore bench heard several cases in Hindi and passed their decisions or other orders in the same language.

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